


Thorns and Roses

by TheStraggletag



Series: Zootopia!AU [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Lion!Gold, Okapi!Belle, Weird, Zootopia!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-04-20 00:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14249325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStraggletag/pseuds/TheStraggletag
Summary: Mr Gold is used to proverbial thorns on his side, and less used to actual thorns on his paws.





	Thorns and Roses

Mr Gold licked his paw for what it felt like the hundredth time, sighing in dissapointment when his raspy tongue failed once more to dislodge the thorn stuck there. It had been bothering him ever since the night before and he cursed the mayor once more for being dramatic enough to orchestrate a covert meeting in the woods to finalise the purchase of a fucking bit of land. He’d gotten the thorn stuck there on his way home and hadn’t been able to remove it yet. It had put him in a particularly foul move that had people cowering in terror at the mere sight of him. Well, more than usual.

Though he knew the sensible thing to do would be to purchase a pair of tweezers from Mr Clark’s and remove it that sneezing little sloth could take hours to actually ring him up, which would mean he’d be late for tea with Miss French. He had offered to go over her proposal to allocate an extra portion of next year’s budget to the library in order to refurbish and restock the children’s section, help her iron out all the kinks to make it an easy win at the next town council meeting. They had worked on it for weeks and all he had left to do was give the finished product a once-over. Miss French had decided that they should do so at Granny’s, so she could treat him to tea and cake as a thank you. Gold considered letting her be seen with him more than generous. 

He tried to hide his discomfort and was mostly successful until he grabbed his fork to cut into the slice of apple pie in front of him and he roared in pain, letting to of the silverware to cradle his paw close to his chest.

“What’s wrong? Let me see.”

Even though it went against every instinct he had he let her cradle his paw and inspect the problem. The thorn was big, but his padded fingers or sharp fangs got in the way when he tried to pull it.

“Okay, I see. Don’t move, darling.”

He was so shocked by the term of endearment that he didn’t react when she brought his paw close to her mouth or when she delicately used her low-crowned, finely-cusped teeth to pluck the thorn gently out of his paw. As if he was a cub she softly kissed the paw afterwards, smiling.

“That’s better.”

As she went back to sipping her tea, as if nothing had happened, he brought his paw close to lick it once more, trying less to soothe the wound and more to find traces of Belle on his skin.


End file.
